By Dhirendra Tripathi
Investing.com -- Stocks wavered as investors await word from the Federal Reserve later this week on the direction of its monetary policy.
After hitting all-time highs, the S&P 500 slipped on concerns the Fed could start talking about cutting back on its bond buying at some point in the near future after evidence of an uptick in inflation.
Fed officials have said they believe higher prices are transitory as the U.S. economy tries to come back from the pandemic, though some analysts say the pressure is rising on the central bank. Treasury yields have been falling in recent days.
Paul Tudor Jones told CNBC on Monday that if the Fed doesn't acknowledge the recent jump in inflation, it would be the "green light to go heavy on the inflation trade,” such as gold, bitcoin and cash.
Despite a jump in oil prices to more than two-year highs, energy stocks failed to capitalize.
President Joe Biden is attending a meeting of NATO allies on Monday ahead of his much-anticipated meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday. This is Biden’s first foreign trip as president, stopping first in the U.K. over the weekend to meet G-7 leaders and Queen Elizabeth II.
Here are three things that could affect markets tomorrow.
1. Producer prices
Prices paid by companies to producers are expected to rise by 0.6% in May from the levels in April, according to analysts tracked by Investing.com. That would match the increase from the prior month.
Year-over-year, the PPI is expected to have spiked by 6.3%, the largest increase since the agency started tracking the data in 2010. It had jumped 6.2% on a yearly basis in April.
2. Retail sales
Core retail sales in May, a number that excludes automobiles, are seen rising 0.2% from the prior month. They had contracted by 0.8% in April. Overall, retail sales are expected to dip 0.7% for the month after being flat previously.
3. Oracle earnings
It’s a mostly quiet week for earnings, and most investors are focused on the Federal Reserve’s policy meeting, but there are a handful of tech reports. One comes Tuesday from Oracle Corporation (NYSE:ORCL), which is seen posting earnings per share of $1.31 on revenue of $11.02 billion for the fourth quarter ended May 31.